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Why are there so many terms for royalty? And I'm talking about generic words like "king", "queen", etc. I seem to remember from my studies that certain terminology was used specifically for Japanese royalty, and other terms were used for foreign royalty of the same status/rank. I also seem to remember hearing that certain terms were related to religion/Buddhism, while others weren't.

From what I understand about "kings" and "emperors", historically there used to be a great distinction: kings ruled kingdoms, which were smaller territories inside of an empire, all of which was (obviously) ruled by the emperor. However, in the present day, I don't think there is such a distinction to most people, as governments have changed greatly over the ages. So the nuances between the terms for "king" and "emperor" (likewise, with "queen" and "empress") seem to overlap a lot.

詳しい！ I have some questions though. For 女王 you say "Queen (female King)" and 王妃 you say "Queen (King's wife)". 1) Does 王妃 imply that the king is still alive? 2) Can we infer anything about a king from 女王? Does 女王 imply that her husband the king died? Or maybe that there never was a husband/king at all? Or is it ambiguous?
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istrasciMay 20 '13 at 15:06

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@istrasci Sorry for late reply. 1) Yes. 2)女王 means a woman on the throne. It doesn't imply the existence of her husband. In fact, エリザベス2世女王 has a husband. * If the king dies and his wife(王妃) ascends the throne, she will be 女王. * If the king dies and his wife(王妃) doesn't ascend the throne, she will be 元王妃 or 王太后 (former king's wife). * If the king dies and his daughter(王女) ascends the throne, she will be 女王.
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marasaiJun 7 '13 at 21:04